Legal Technique

Chapter 7 and 8

Rhetorical Tricks

 These are the ingenious use of language to advance an argument

Examples:

Non sequitor – making an assertion where the conclusion cannot be logically derived from the
premise

Free Patent Grant – the government gives title to a public land to someone who has been occupying the
land for a certain number of years

Another fallacy:

Affirming the consequent

- another type of non sequitor

- Means deriving the premise from the existence of the conclusion.
Just because a conclusion exists doesn’t mean that the premise is present

Ad Hominem – attacking the person instead of the substance. This is generally improper

Causation – when one tries to prove causation using correlation.

Occam’s Razor – the opposite argument in the fallacy of causation.

Embedded Assumptions – misleading questions for basis.

Ways to argue on responsibility:

Due Diligence Theory

- care of an ordinary person in a family

- A defense in relation to substantive responsibility

Corporate Due Diligence

- for juridical entities

- An investigation to the transactions in a corporate setting

Force Majeure – fortuitous events

Law and Equity

If the law is not favorable to you, turn to equity.

It tries to achieve justice with a general application of the law.

The problem is that eventually, some situations require a specific application because a general
application would result to injustice.